Thornton plans to return, stay involved

9:13 PM,
Nov. 16, 2013

Longtime political activist Deborah Thornton is photographed Friday at her Iowa City home.

Written by

Adam B Sullivan
| Iowa City Press-Citizen

O ne of the area's most active Republican organizers is leaving the country next month.

Deborah Thornton is moving to Africa to join her husband, who's taken a job for the U.S. federal government in Liberia. Thornton, a longtime political activist and government staffer, has spent more than a decade in Iowa City working as a policy analyst and volunteer political organizer.

Thornton started in Republican politics early, coming from a politically involved family. She graduated in the early 1980s from Indiana University, where she studied journalism and political science, and her lengthy ...